Scott Alexander on Implement a universal basic income

Scott Alexander

Author and psychiatrist

I think if we were to implement a Basic Income Guarantee we might save more money in psychiatric care than we think – since we compete with the prison system to be the warehouse for people who can’t make it out in the world and nobody knows what to do with. It might produce some of the same kind of savings as giving the homeless people houses. If I got fired because we’d solved all the problems relating to poverty, and the population of seriously mentally ill people was too small to support the current number of psychiatrists, that would be a pretty neat way to go.

AI Verified source (2015)

2y ago

Policy proposals and claims

Implement a universal basic income

votes For

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AI Verified The quote directly discusses implementing a 'Basic Income Guarantee' and argues for its broader effects and savings, which is effectively about implementing a universal/basic income as a whole. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified The quote describes implementing a "Basic Income Guarantee" as likely beneficial—"we might save more money," it "might produce" savings, and solving poverty that way would be "a pretty neat way to go." · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

Quote authenticity verification history

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AI Verified Verified: the original Slate Star Codex page at the supplied URL is accessible, shows “Posted on February 12, 2015 by Scott Alexander,” and lines 173–174 contain the quoted passage verbatim (aside from normal typography such as curly apostrophes/dashes). A mirror at Read Scott Alexander reproduces the same text. ([slatestarcodex.com](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/02/12/money-money-everywhere-but-not-a-cent-to-spend/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

AI Verified Verified. Quote is from Scott Alexander's 2015 Slate Star Codex post "Money, Money, Everywhere, But Not A Cent To Spend". Direct WebFetch on slatestarcodex.com returns 403 (the site blocks scrapers), but a Google web search returns snippets with the matching passage ("we might save more money in psychiatric care than we think – since we compete with the prison system to be the warehouse for people who can't make it out in the world and nobody knows what to do with... might produce some of the same kind of savings as giving the homeless people houses"), confirming both the wording and the source URL. Author attribution is correct: Scott Alexander (psychiatrist, Slate Star Codex/Astral Codex Ten author) is well-documented as a long-time UBI advocate. Vote alignment is correct: the quote argues a Basic Income Guarantee would produce real savings, which is supportive of the statement "Implement a universal basic income" — vote "for" matches. Quote year is 2015 (older than 2025/26); attempted to find a more recent ACX quote on UBI to replace it (December 2025 Links post mentions GiveDirectly's Malawi UBI work) but ACX is also blocked from direct fetch and I could not extract a verbatim recent passage to substitute, so the existing well-corroborated quote is retained. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 5mo ago

replying to Scott Alexander